There is a grapevine in the ranks of all the services. The men make it their business to find out who their officers are. There is a special respect for those who would carry the ball on a football field, throw a wicked block, or make a dead-stop tackle.
-- Slade Cutter

“I think it’s huge – especially for us,” Maryland Head Coach Ralph Friedgen said of a rivalry. “I know Navy is a big rival with Army. But to have an in-state rival, I think it just helps the whole state.

“I think it just brings the whole state together and having it in Baltimore just accentuates that. … I think anybody that went last time will want to come back this year because they know it’s going to be a great show.”

“We need to play more,” Niumatalolo said. “We’ve got two great institutions that are so close together. There’s a history involved. Hopefully we can continue this series going on.”

Coach Niumatalolo is right in that there is a history here, although most of that history revolves around the fact that Navy and Maryland haven’t played each other very much. We all know the story; Jerry Fishman has a couple of late hits that draw boos from the Brigade, the Brigade gets into Fishman’s head, and Fishman gives the Brigade the finger. </series> for the next 40 years. The two teams finally met again in 2005– much to the chagrin of Fishman, who seems to resent being reduced now to a historical footnote (as evidenced by his somewhat pathetic attempt to buy his way onto the field before the game). While Fishman relished being the guy that ended the series, in reality his act was just the last in what was already a contentious relationship between the two schools.

Navy-Maryland wasn’t an annual game even before the series went on hiatus. In the nascent days of Maryland football, the Mids would occasionally use the Aggies (as they were known at the time) as a tune-up for games against the Ivy League powerhouses on their schedule. They would also run up the score, including a 76-0 trouncing in 1913. The games became more competitive in the 1930s as Maryland grew. In 1934, a late Slade Cutter field goal gave Navy a 16-13 win. Maryland protested the game, however, after their coaches watched film and accused Navy of using an illegal play. That led to the first break in the series; this time, it was Maryland that refused to play Navy for 16 years. A last-minute schedule opening brought the teams back together in 1950, and the series continued off and on for a few more games marked by rough play on the field and mischief off of it. Navy’s 19-7 win in 1965 would be the last time the Terps and Mids shared the same football field until coming together in Baltimore in 2005. Now, with a second meeting in six years, it appears that bygones are bygones. Well, sort of. Even this game seemed to be on the verge of falling through after Debbie Yow’s brinkmanship. But Yow is now the athletic director at North Carolina State, and her departure has led to an apparent thaw in the schools’ relationship. The handshakes and smiles make it seem likely that more Navy-Maryland games are in our future. How many is a matter of speculation.

There’s no doubt that playing Maryland is fun. M&T Bank Stadium will be packed, and both schools will reap the financial rewards from ticket sales and television. Navy’s season ticket sales even see a bump when they can add marquee games in Baltimore to the package. I’m not sure that’s enough to justify an annual meeting, though.

Coach Friedgen talks about the appeal of playing an in-state rival, and he’s right. Rivalry games energize fans and get them excited about both programs. Unfortunately for Maryland, they don’t have a natural rival. Virginia and West Virginia sort of fit the bill, but they both have bigger rivalries with other schools. Virginia fans might not like Maryland, but Virginia Tech is the game they circle on their calendar. The same goes for West Virginia and Pitt. Things wouldn’t be any different with Navy, obviously, since Army, Notre Dame, and Air Force will always get top billing on the Mids’ schedule. Perhaps the thinking is that there might be a little added spice due to the schools’ proximity. Other than fitting the geographic criteria, though, Navy and Maryland don’t exactly fit the in-state rival profile. Navy fans come from all over the country, spend four years in Annapolis, then go back out all over the world. This isn’t a situation where both teams’ fans pick a side at birth and spend a lifetime sparring with neighbors who chose the other side. Rivalries that don’t evolve out of that kind of grassroots origin are usually the product of the same kind of bad blood that got this series cancelled to begin with.

Still, even if the Navy-Maryland series doesn’t turn into everything that Coach Friedgen envisions, the financial reasons alone would probably be worth it for Maryland. Navy’s situation, on the other hand, is a little more complicated. The Mids are already locked into annual games against Notre Dame, the other two service academies, and soon, SMU. One could argue that Maryland has more appeal than SMU, but Navy tries to play a Texas team in most years for recruiting purposes anyway. Add the Terps to that list, and nearly half of Navy’s schedule would be set each year. One of the advantages that Navy gets from being independent is scheduling flexibility. They can schedule whatever games they see fit for recruiting, money, and competitive balance. The more games that Navy commits to, the less flexibility they have. That’s especially true when scheduling a BCS team like Maryland that has resources and a recruiting pool that no service academy can match. That doesn’t mean that Navy can’t beat Maryland, but it does mean that in most years, they won’t be favored. Notre Dame is already on the schedule. Does it really make sense to make the schedule any more of an uphill battle than it has to be?

Perhaps there will come a time when Navy doesn’t have a choice. The Army-Navy game has been the program’s golden goose for years, but ratings have been declining. They improved after the game was moved back a week in order to once again have a Saturday to itself, but now there’s nowhere else for it to go. If networks aren’t willing to pay as much for the game’s television rights, Navy will have to find some other way to generate that revenue. This summer’s conference expansion bonanza showed us how much money other schools are making from television. Navy might have to find additional revenue streams just to remain competitive, regardless of what happens to the Army-Navy game. Maybe that’s already happening, with big-money games against Penn State, South Carolina, and Ohio State on the horizon.

We can cross that bridge when we come to it. I like playing Maryland, but it might be best to only schedule them every 3-4 years or so. That way, every class has a chance to square off against the Terps, but the Mids aren’t stuck with a scheduling albatross.

I agree, mainly because of the bad blood angle, that can’t help but come back from the dead. I was a Plebe at that ’65 game and cheered loudly as ambulances came on the field to take away Terp players and yelled with the others when the bird salute came from Fishman. I remember how officers were posted in the stands to keep the Mids there after the game until the Md fans had left. There was lots of talk about charging the other side after the game. That animosity would surely happen again if we started meeting every year.

i’d kill for something to get our apathetic fans at the games to stop reading the paper and cheer. i don’t think bad blood would be renewed (65 was a long time ago), but I’m not going to say the situation couldn’t get ugly again. UMD isn’t exactly the class of the ACC in terms of fan behavior (stuff whatever homerism you want to say – you know it’s true)

Every other year … true that there’s not a natural cradle-to-grave rivalry between College Park and Annapolis, but regular meetings, especially if the games are competitive can foster something close to that at least.

ignoring the facts that exist about UMD fans just because I’m a state fan is right up there with ignoring the head to head results and relying on SOS just because one is an air force fan on the list of comebacks to arguments that hold water

and yes, there was a shooting at a tailgate a few years back when a drunk driver got dragged from his car and had the piss beat out of him by a marine and came back for revenge. it had nothing to do with being a fan and everything to do with not being a man and killing someone who beat you up

long story short, i don’t agree that it’s going to “surely happen.” but then again I never thought we’d get the reception at rutgers we seemed to get last time. at least it won’t be the mizzou band, right? what aholes

Speaking of charging the stands, at one Navy-MD when I was a Midn, the MD fans actually came across the field and attacked the Brigade, arming themselves with metal folding chairs that had been used for temporary seating below the grandstand wall.

The only thing I remember about Maryland football when I was at USNA (since we didn’t play them) were the ads they ran in the newspaper. The headline was “Maryland Football: the ONLY major college football in the state”.

Agreed. Once per four years, or so. Outside of geography, Navy really doesn’t have much in common with Maryland.

Following up on ’76’s point, I’ve wondered how many people in the Baltimore-DC area who have no connection to Navy or U of Md end up coming to a game or two and start following Navy as fans.

It would seem that Maryland is a more natural fit for the unaffiliated in-state fan, but Navy is (in recent years) a winner. Moreover, NMCMS is fairly accessible, the atmosphere is pleasant, and the experience is fun. (I’ve found it to be more fun in the years after I graduated.)

Does a periodic game against MD help us bring these people in as somewhat regular fans? Would it be worth it to have this game occasionally at NMCMS to bring them in?

An annual rivalry game, I believe, would be more likely to increase the Terps’ fan base. Outside of the small local sphere of influence that is annapolis, the average person from Maryland is probably more apt to identify with college park. This would be particularly true in large centers of population like baltimore or towson, where local sentiment would naturally coalesce around the easily identifiable state school.
But, as our following is a national one, any game that would lead to good television coverage (I.e. Exclusive coverage and billing by herbstreit/corso college gameday) could only be a boon.

re: USNA76 comment about newspapers, in late 60’s the Wash Post took great glee in producing weekly its worst 100 teams and we were always ranked 99 or 100(regardless of W-L record). Do ya think it had anything to do with it’s view of Vietnam??? nah it must have been objective. We played lax at UMD in’68. It was sooo bad on bench (eggs, bottles, batteries, etc.) that legendary coach Bilderback had us walk to middle of field for all time outs. TMAN

I am not an alumni but have had Navy Season Tickets for about 6 years. I have no long-term identification with either team, but have lived in Annapolis for 20 years. I believe a game with UMD would be great for Navy and UMD both. UMD needs a rival and Navy could use an in-state game.

Taking the current and planned schedule, a Navy / UMD game every odd year starting in 2015 (at M&T in Baltimore) coupled with the Navy “Home” game against ND every even year at eith M&T or FedEx would be a great addition to the schedule.

I would prefer to add UMD in 2013 and get rid of South Alabama game??? This is a crazy game is really not needed.

USA – University of South Alabama – is in Mobile. There are a lot of good high school football players all along the Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana gulf coast – not to mention the rest of the state of Alabama. I have to believe this was a consideration when USA and Troy were added to our schedule. BTW – when the game is played, we will probably draw a few Navy supporters in the stands from Pensacola. Playing the Twerps every three or four years seems about right to me.